There are 3 aspects to this job, video capture, video editing and DVD
authorship.
The key to good quality in converting your VHS tapes to DVD is getting a
highest-possible quality capture from the analog tape to a digital
format on the PC.
With regard to video capture, one solution that is so far above every
other solution that it's not even a close call. That is to record from
or through a Camcorder with A-to-D conversion capability into the
computer through a "Firewire" port. This type of A-to-D capability is
present in most, but not all, Sony Digital-8 camcorders, it's also
present in some other models and brands, but by no means all of them.
With this capability, you feed video (S-Video or just composite, with
stereo audio) into the Camcorder's input jacks as if you were going to
make a dub (copy), and it comes out as AVI digital in real time (there
does not need to be any tape in the camcorder and the camcorder is not
"running" in a mechanical sense). The computer, obviously, doesn't have
transport control of the VHS source, which you have to start and stop
manually.
If you don't have and are unwilling to acquire a camcorder with this
capability, there are external devices (both USB and Firewire) that will
do the same thing, but I've never seen one that does it as well or as
straightforwardly as a camcorder with this capability. Be sure to get a
Firewire or "High Speed" USB 2.0 device if you go the separate device
route, because while some USB 1.1 devices exist, their bandwidth isn't
high enough to even allow a maximum quality transfer. The quality of
these varies greatly, and from what I've seen, the best are still not as
good as a digital camcorder.
To do the conversion of the VHS tapes, I bought a JVC HR-S9800U S-VHS
VCR. I got it used (factory reconditioned) on E-Bay for about $250
(that was 2 years ago, they are much cheaper today). This is an Ultra
high-end VCR with a 4 MB digital frame buffer and digital signal
processing. This VCR has digital time base correction, digital noise
reduction and digital signal processing, and it's by far the best VCR
I've ever used, I have NEVER seen this kind of picture quality from
even an S-VHS VCR before. You can find these and other similar high-end
VCRs with digital TBC and signal processing on E-Bay, do a search for
"digipure", which is JVC's trademark for this feature (you have to
search the body of the auctions, not just the title). By the way, I've
not come across any VHS VCRs by anyone other than JVC that are this
high-end or that have these digital features.
After the capture is done and you have the video on the PC, there are
two further distinct aspects to "creating video", they are video editing
and DVD authoring.
Video editing is the editing and assembly of the captured clips into
what you really want to see as the final product. This includes
trimming the start and end points, deleting boring segments, ordering
the clips in the sequence that you want, transitions between the clips,
possibly video adjustments (color, brightness, contrast, etc.), and
correspondingly, anything that you want to do with the audio (including
background music).
DVD authorship is the creation of a DVD, and that means primarily the
menu structure, the division of the total video project into "chapters",
etc. This includes things like background music, menu "buttons", menu
"backgrounds", etc. Warning: Don't create a DVD without chapters and
menus. They can become unmanageable when you go to play them back, some
players cannot do anything with such a DVD other than to let you watch
it straight through at normal speed. Take the time to create a "scene
menu" and try to have a menu scenes (chapter) at least every ten or 15
minutes.
There are some other considerations, things that impact the quality of
the project, for example the encoding rate when the material is finally
encoded into MPEG2 for the burn. If you use the full DVD encoding rate,
you get one hour of video on a single layer 4 gig DVD, but if you cut
the rate - which cuts the quality - you can get 2 hours; I found about
80 to 90 minutes on a DVD was as much as I was willing to tolerate in
terms of quality degradation.
Video editing and authoring is a very complex subject, and there are
literally hundreds of programs out there. I converted about 50 2-hours
VHS tapes to DVD, and it was about a 60 day project (I could only do
about one DVD per day). I also "produced" several DVDs that were not
from camcorder tapes at all.
I tried about a dozen products, and the bottom line was that I don't
really, totally like any of them, and I ended up using a combination of
them.
I have to say, the bulk of the work ended up being done in Pinnacle
Expression, a low-end program that is often available "free after
rebate" (it's part of the Pinnacle Instant CD/DVD product, also, which
you can pick up on E-Bay for $10 or so). I have a love-hate
relationship with this product. It's buggy and flakey, and it doesn't
do much compared to most of the other products that I tried. But it
does everything that you need for most routine videos, and it does it
quickly, easily and efficiently with the shortest learning curve of any
of the products that I tried. That makes it a good product if you can
successfully get all of the updates installed, and if you don't try to
go outside of it's "envelope". As I said, I ended up using it for more
than 80% of what I did, all of it's many warts not withstanding.
Moving up, Pinnacle Studio is probably the best consumer level product.
It's much more capable than Expression, and much more stable. HOWEVER
it has a tremendous learning curve, much like Corel Draw or Photoshop --
you can spend a LONG time (weeks) learning to use it effectively.
One program that worked very well for certain specific editing tasks was
Microsoft's Windows Movie Maker 2. In many ways, for many users and
many typical tasks, it's the best video editing program, where you are
not trying to get too fancy and easy of use and short learning curve are
as high on your priority list as capabilities. AND IT'S FREE, the basic
program is part of WinXP and the upgrade to version 2 is a free
Microsoft download. Unfortunately, however, it's ONLY a video editing
program. It doesn't do DVD authoring or burning AT ALL.
The latest version of the Roxio software (Easy Media Creator 7) now has
full-version video-wave 7 in it, and it may be a good choice for a
mid-to-high range product that can do "everything".
Finally, with regard to the DVD burner, there is no quesiton about it,
the Pioneer burner are so far above all other brands, and so inexpensive
(about $80 to $90) that nothing else should even be considered.
